From the NY Times

Math Suggests College Frenzy Will Soon Ease

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"Projections show that by next year or the year after, the annual number of high school graduates in the United States will peak at about 2.9 million after a 15-year climb. The number is then expected to decline until about 2015. Most universities expect this to translate into fewer applications and less selectivity, with most students probably finding it easier to get into college.

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Nationally, the population decline is projected to be relatively gentle, with the number of high school graduates expected to fall in the Northeast and Midwest, while continuing to increase in the South and Southwest.

The number of white high school graduates will go down nationally, and the number of African-American graduates will remain relatively steady. But the number of Hispanic and Asian-American graduates will increase sharply, according to projections by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, whose demographic estimates are highly regarded by admissions officials.

And so admissions officials are scrambling to attract Hispanic and low-income students, who have been underrepresented at the most prestigious private and public universities. Colleges in the Northeast and Midwest have particularly intensified their efforts to strengthen alumni networks and make themselves better known at high schools in fast-growing states like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Colorado. Cornell sent an admissions officer to live full-time in Los Angeles.

“It’s kind of a demographic perfect storm in some ways,” said Robert S. Clagett, dean of admissions at Middlebury College. “Because where the increases are going to come are in states where the college-going rate is lower and where those who do go to college primarily stay in the state.”

Colby College and a number of others in the North have also begun to offer airplane tickets for low-income high school students and their parents from Sun Belt states to visit their campuses. Last summer, Middlebury and Williams flew in 27 college counselors from states where the colleges are not well known.

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From my perspective, the only bad part of this is that less students attending a college = less influx of tuition and fees which also = fewer resources to award grants and scholarships. MIght free up some of the other monies set aside by the state and federal governments for college funding though.